HISTORY OF CINEMA
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
No prerequisites are required.
The assessment of the contents covered in the course will take place by means of an oral test, aimed at ascertaining the student's knowledge of the contents of the course manual, the analytical ability of the student with reference to the films for which full viewing is envisaged and Di Blasio's in-depth text (Cinema and history: interferences, confluences). The mark for the oral test (marked in thirtieths) will take into account the accuracy and quality of the answers (60%), as well as communication skills and the ability to adequately justify statements, analyses and judgements (40%).
The student must have achieved a total mark of 18/30 to pass the learning assessment.
The course aims at providing historical, linguistic and theoretical tools useful for the knowledge and understanding of cinema at an international level, from its beginnings (end of the 19th century) to the end of the 1990s, and for the reading of the cinematographic work, intended both as an aesthetic-cultural product and as an economic-social product. The general objective is to place the history of cinema within the broader framework of 20th century history, investigating how and to what extent the medium has been permeable to the political, economic, cultural and social changes that have accompanied its development.
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- recognise and understand the main forms of expression in the history of cinema by relating them to the historical context of reference;
- grasp the evolutions that have affected the cinematographic language;
- read and analyse a film text in depth, taking into account the context of production and that of reception;
- develop communication and expository skills in the field of cinema.
The course is structured on two levels, which complement each other:
1) Definition and analysis of the methodological and theoretical issues of film history and historiography (indicatively 10 hours).
2) Identification and stylistic-formal analysis of the main production trends in the history of cinema through the recognition of significant trends, films and authors (approximately 38 hours). For each era it is proposed to identify:
- the relationship with the context (political, economic, social and cultural);
- the modes of reception and interpretation of the works (also diachronically);
- the repercussions on contemporary reality.
The study of the following texts is required:
- D. Bordwell, K. Thompson, Storia del cinema. Un’introduzione, a cura di D. Bruni, E. Mosconi, 6e, McGraw Hill, Milano, 2022 (EXCEPT chapters 18, 20, 21, 22 and 23). The 4e and 5e editions of the same textbook are also suitable.
- T.M Di Blasio, Cinema e Storia. Interferenze/Confluenze, Viella, Roma, 2014.
Students are also required to watch fully and prepare 10 films, also dealt with in the classroom. They are, in chronological order:
- Giglio infranto (D.W. Griffith, 1919)
- Il gabinetto del dottor Caligari (R. Wiene, 1920)
- Sciopero! (S.M. Ėjzenštejn, 1925)
- Lo squadrone bianco (A. Genina, 1936)
- Via col vento (V. Fleming, 1939)
- La regola del gioco (J. Renoir, 1939)
- Umberto D. (V. De Sica, 1952)
- Questa è la mia vita (J-L. Godard, 1962)
- Taxi Driver (M. Scorsese, 1976)
- Nikita (L. Besson, 1990)
The learning objectives of the course will be achieved through the mode of frontal lectures during which significant scenes and sequences from representative films will be brought to attention and analysed.
The professor receives students by appointment, to be arranged by writing to m.piredda@uninsubria.it, at the Rossi Pavilion or eventually online.